Why Do I Blog? Let Me Count the Ways

Another meme has come to town, and this time I’m answering this one here (my last meme was posted over at 10e20.com — 5 things you don’t know about me). Nathan Weinberg (still no relation) tagged me and Barry, among a few others, and while I’m totally under the weather with an awful cold, I decided that I have to oblige right away because I’m going to be inundated with family and conferences over the next week.

So, why do I blog? Upon giving it more thought, here are my reasons:

I love to write. On my About page, I write about how I wanted to be an author. That never quite materialized (attempting to realize your parents’ dreams at a very impressionable young age almost always does that to you). With my blog, I can freely express what I want and can finally see myself as a writer.

photocritique.us is a site where I open up a forum for digital photography newbies and even intermediate users, while expanding my own personal skillset as an aspiring photographer.

pixelopera.com is my oldest currently living blog, which allows me to showcase my photography. Unfortunately, I haven’t kept at that as much as I’d have liked. The passion for writing seems to be overtaking the passion for taking pictures. (Should I be worried?)

I like networking. Blogs have gotten me introduced to and noticed by a great amount of people I admire. Furthermore, I can become part of some greater conversations and contribute to them. I can write and show how people have influenced me and hope that I can do the same as I continue to learn and open those new doors.

For me, blogging comes down to two things: social and community. I’d imagine how much you know how I value social media and social networks, and blogging is simply an extension of that. (My Twitter microblogging habits are surprisingly not changing. It was great to be able to “blog” about my poor flight from my cell phone. Note: You might want to add me up and see how the return flight went. ðŸ˜‰ )

Blogging allows me to show myself as a more well-rounded person (who hopefully is a little creative as well). From the blogs above, you know I am a relatively new player in the Internet Marketing industry, I like photography, and I even have some tech skills under my belt. My life really isn’t all about those three factors, though. I recently started a blog which has taken an entire community by surprise, and even with this newfound success, I do have other interests . I’m not sure I’m ready to end with these blogs alone.

Could I go on about why I blog? I’m sure I can. But let us focus on why other people blog, so I’m tagging a few more people this time to seek out a more even male-to-female ratio (sorry — I still didn’t quite get it ðŸ˜‰ ):

Nobody tagged me to ask why I blog, but I can tell you why I shouldn’t:-) My book output has fallen from a little over one new title a year to zero since I started blgging. Blogging is death for authors who write books in part because they need an outlet for writing. Sure, I have the most popular blog on the web about self publishing now, but I haven’t written a new book since 2004!

Fortunately, I just concluded that Internet traffic has passed it’s peak and we’re all competing for the readers in a zero sum game, so it should spur me into going back to do something more constructive with my time. As much as I distrust Alexa on the small stuff, a graph of Google vs Yahoo vs MSN visitors on Alexa is quite informative.